by Dave Eggers
Mae saw a picture of Ana María, sitting in a white room on a folding chair, looking up, expressionless, an unnamed child in her lap. Next to her picture was a smile button that said “I hear you Ana María,” which, when clicked on, would add Mae’s name to a list of those lending their support to Ana María. Mae clicked the button. Just as important, Tania wrote, is that we send a message to the paramilitaries that we denounce their actions. Below the picture of Ana María was a blurry photo of a group of men in mismatched military garb, walking through dense jungle. Next to the photo was a frown button that said “We denounce the Central Guatemalan Security Forces.” Mae hesitated briefly, knowing the gravity of what she was about to do—to come out against these rapists and murderers—but she needed to make a stand. She pushed the button. An autoresponse thanked her, noting that she was the 24,726th person to send a smile to Ana María and the 19,282nd to send a frown to the paramilitaries. Tania noted that while the smiles were sent directly to Ana María’s phone, Tania’s brother was still working on a way to get the frowns to the Central Guatemalan Security Forces.
After Tania’s petition Mae sat for a moment, feeling very alert, very aware of herself, knowing that not only had she possibly made a group of powerful enemies in Guatemala, but that untold thousands of SeeChange watchers were seeing her doing it. It gave her layers of self-awareness and a distinct sense of the power she could wield in her position. She decided to use the restroom, to throw some cold water on her face and use her legs a bit, and it was in the bathroom that her phone buzzed. The caller ID was blocked.
“Hello?”
“It’s me. Kalden.”
“Where have you been?”
“It’s complicated now. All the cameras.”
“You’re not a spy, are you?”
“You know I’m not a spy.”
“Annie thinks you are.”
“I want to see you.”
“I’m in the bathroom.”
“I know.”
“You know?”
“CircleSearch, SeeChange … You’re not hard to find.”
“And where are you?”
“I’m coming. Stay there.”
“No. No.”
“I need to see you. Stay there.”
“No. I can see you later. There’s a thing in the New Kingdom. Open-mic folk night. A safe, public place.”
“No, no. I can’t do that.”
“You can’t come here.”
“I can and I will.”
And he hung up.
Mae checked her purse. She had a condom. And she stayed. She chose the far stall and waited. She knew that waiting for him was not wise. That it was wrong on many levels. She wouldn’t be able to tell Annie about this. Annie would approve of most carnal activity but not here, at work, in a bathroom. This would demonstrate poor judgment, and reflect poorly on Annie. Mae watched the time. Two minutes had passed and still she was in a bathroom stall, waiting for a man she knew only vaguely, and who, she guessed, wanted only to ravish her, repeatedly, in ever-stranger places. So why was she there? Because she wanted this to happen. She wanted him to take her, in the stall, and she wanted to know that she had been taken in the stall, at work, and that only the two of them would ever know. Why was this some glittering thing she needed? She heard the door open, and then the clicking of the lock on the door. A lock she didn’t know existed. Then she heard the sound of Kalden’s long strides. The footsteps stopped near the stalls, giving way to a dark squeaking, the strain of bolts and steel. She felt a shadow above her and craned her neck to see a figure descending to it. Kalden had climbed the high stall wall, and had crawled across the grid to get to hers. She felt him slip in behind her. The heat of his body warmed her back, his breath hot on the nape of her neck.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
His mouth opened on her ear, his tongue diving. She gasped and leaned into him. Kalden’s hands came around her stomach, traced her waist, traveled quickly to her thighs, holding them firmly. She pushed his hands inward and up, her mind battling, and finally asserting her right to do this. She was twenty-four, and if she did not do this kind of thing now—did not do exactly this, exactly now—she never would. It was the imperative of youth.
“Mae,” he whispered, “stop thinking.”
“Okay.”
“And close your eyes. Picture what I’m doing to you.”
His mouth was on her neck, kissing it, licking it, while his hands were busy with her skirt and panties. He eased both off her hips and to the floor and brought her to him, filling her at once. “Mae,” he said, as she pushed herself into him, his hands holding her hips, bringing him so deep she could feel his swollen crown somewhere near her heart. “Mae,” he said, as she held the walls on either side of them, as if holding back the rest of the world.
She came, gasping, and he finished, too, shuddering but silent. And immediately they both laughed, quietly, knowing they’d done something reckless and career-threatening and that they needed to leave. He turned her toward him and kissed her mouth, his eyes open, looking astounded and full of mischief. “Bye,” he said, and she only waved, feeling his shape rise again behind her, climb the walls and make his way out.
And because he paused at the door to unlock it, and because she thought she might never see him again, Mae found her phone, reached over the stall wall, and took a picture, not knowing whether or not she would catch any semblance of him. When she looked at what she’d captured, it was only his right arm, from the elbow to his fingertips, the rest of him already gone.
Why lie to Annie? Mae asked herself, not knowing the answer, but knowing she would lie to her anyway. After composing herself in the bathroom, Mae had gone back to her desk, and immediately, unable to control herself, had messaged Annie, who was flying somewhere to or over Europe: Again with grey-hair, she wrote. Telling Annie at all would precipitate a series of lies, big and small, and Mae found herself, in the minutes between when she sent the message and Annie’s inevitable reply, wondering just how much to conceal, and why.
Finally Annie’s message came. Must know everything now. I’m in London with some Parliament lackeys. I think one just pulled out a monocle. Give me distraction.
While she decided just how much to tell Annie, Mae teased out details. In a bathroom.
Annie replied immediately.
The old man? In a bathroom? Did you use the diaper-changing station?
No. In a stall. And he was VIGOROUS.
A voice behind Mae said her name. Mae turned to find Gina and her enormous nervous smile. “You have a second?” Mae attempted to turn away the screen containing the dialogue with Annie, but Gina had already seen it.
“You’re talking to Annie?” she said. “You guys really are tight, huh?”
Mae nodded, turned her screen, and all light left Gina’s face. “Is this still a good time to explain Conversion Rate and Retail Raw?”
Mae had forgotten, entirely, that Gina was supposed to come to demonstrate a new layer.
“Sure,” Mae said.
“Has Annie told you about this stuff already?” Gina said, her face looking very fragile.
“No,” Mae said, “she hasn’t.”
“She didn’t tell you about Conversion Rate?”
“No.”
“Or Retail Raw?”
“No.”
Gina’s face brightened. “Oh. Okay. Good. So we’ll do it now?” Gina’s face searched Mae’s, as if looking for the slightest sign of doubt, which Gina would take as reason to collapse entirely.
“Great,” Mae said, and Gina brightened again.
“Good. Let’s start with the Conversion Rate. This is fairly obvious anyway, but the Circle would not exist, and would not grow, and would not be able to get closer to completing the Circle, if there were not actual purchases being made, actual commerce spurred. We’re here to be a gateway to all the world’s information, but we are supported by advertisers who hope to reach customers through us, right?”
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Gina smiled, her large white teeth briefly overtaking her face. Mae was trying to concentrate, but she was thinking of Annie, in her Parliament meeting, who was no doubt thinking of Mae and Kalden. And when Mae thought of herself and Kalden, she thought of his hands on her waist, pulling her gently down onto him, her eyes closed, her mind enlarging all—
Gina was still talking. “But how to provoke, how to stimulate purchases—that’s the conversion rate. You can zing, you could comment on and rate and highlight any product, but can you translate all this into action? Leveraging your credibility to spur action—this is crucial, okay?”
Now Gina was sitting next to Mae, her fingers on her keyboard. She brought up a complex spreadsheet. At that moment, another message from Annie arrived on Mae’s second screen. She turned it slightly. Now I have to be the boss. You got his last name this time?
Mae saw that Gina was reading the message, too, making no pretense of doing otherwise.
“Go ahead,” Gina said. “That looks important.”
Mae reached over Gina, to her keyboard, and typed the lie she knew, moments after leaving the bathroom, she would tell Annie. Yes. I know all.
Immediately Annie’s reply arrived: And his name is?
Gina looked at this message. “That must be so crazy, to just get messages from Annie Allerton.”
“I guess so,” Mae said, and typed Can’t tell.
Gina read Mae’s message and seemed less interested in the content of it than the fact that this back-and-forth was actually happening in front of her. “You guys just message each other like it’s no big deal?” she asked.
Mae softened the impact. “Not all day.”
“Not all day?” Gina’s face came alive with a tentative smile.
Annie burst through. You’re actually not telling me? Tell me now.
“Sorry,” Mae said. “Almost done.” She typed No. You’ll hassle him.
Send me a picture, Annie wrote.
No. But I have one, Mae typed, executing the second lie she knew was necessary. She did have a photo of him, and once she realized she did, and that she could tell Annie this, and be telling the truth without telling all of it, and that this photo, along with the white lie of knowing his actual last name, would allow her to continue with this man, Kalden, who very well might be a danger to the Circle, she knew she would use this second lie with Annie, and it would buy her more time—more time to rise and fall on Kalden, while trying to ascertain exactly who he was and what he wanted from her.
An action shot, she typed. I did a facial-rec and it all connects.
Thank god, Annie wrote. But you’re a bitch.
Gina, who had read the message, was visibly flustered. “Maybe we should do this later?” she said, her forehead suddenly glistening.
“No, sorry,” Mae said. “Go on. I’ll turn the screen away.”
Another message appeared from Annie. While turning the screen away, Mae glanced at it. Did you hear the fracturing of any bones while sitting on him? Older men have bird bones, and pressure like you’re talking about could be fatal.
“Okay,” Gina said, swallowing hard, “for years lesser companies had been tracking, and trying to influence, the connection between online mentions, reviews, comments, ratings, and actual purchases. Circle developers have figured out a way to measure the impact of these factors, of your participation, really, and articulate it with the Conversion Rate.”
Another message appeared, but Mae ignored it, and Gina forged on, thrilled to have been deemed more important than Annie, even for a moment.
“So every purchase initiated or prompted by a recommendation you make raises your Conversion Rate. If your purchase or recommendation spurs fifty others to take the same action, then your CR is x50. There are Circlers with a conversion rate of x1,200. That means an average of 1,200 people buy whatever they buy. They’ve accumulated enough credibility that their followers trust their recommendations implicitly, and are deeply thankful for the surety in their shopping. Annie, of course, has one of the highest CRs in the Circle.”
Just then, another droplet sounded. Gina blinked as if she’d been slapped, but continued.
“Okay, so your average Conversion Rate so far has been x119. Not bad. But on a scale of 1 to 1,000, there’s a lot of room for improvement. Below the Conversion Rate is your Retail Raw, the total gross purchase price of recommended products. So let’s say you recommend a certain keychain, and 1,000 people take your recommendation, then those 1,000 keychains, priced at $4 each, bring your Retail Raw to $4,000. It’s just the gross retail price of the commerce you’ve stoked. Fun, right?”
Mae nodded. She loved the notion of actually being able to track the effect of her tastes and endorsements.
Another droplet sounded. Gina seemed to be blinking back tears. She stood up.
“Okay. I feel like I’m invading your lunch and your friendship. So that’s the Conversion Rate and Retail Raw. I know you understand it. There’ll be a new screen by the end of the day to measure these scores.”
Gina tried to smile, but couldn’t seem to lift the sides of her mouth enough to seem convincing. “Oh, and the minimum expectation for high-functioning Circlers is a conversion rate of x250, and a weekly Retail Raw of $45,000, both of which are modest goals that most Circlers far exceed. And if you have questions, well,” she stopped, her eyes fragile. “I’m sure you can ask Annie.”
She turned and left.
A few nights later, on a cloudless Thursday, Mae drove home, her first time since her father’s Circle insurance had taken effect. She knew her father had been feeling far better, and she was looking forward to seeing him in person, hoping, ridiculously, for some miraculous change, but knowing she would see only minor improvements. Still, her parents’ voices, on the phone and in texts, had been ebullient. “Everything’s different now,” they’d been saying for weeks, and had been asking to have her come celebrate. And so, looking forward to the imminent gratitude, she drove east and south and when she arrived, her father greeted her at the door, looking far stronger and, more importantly, more confident, more like a man—the man he once was. He held out his wrist monitor and arranged it parallel to Mae’s. “Look at us. We match. You want some vino?”
Inside, the three of them arranged themselves as they always had, along the kitchen counter, and they diced, and breaded, and they talked about the various ways the health of Mae’s father had improved. Now he had his choice of doctors. Now he had no limitations on the medicines he could take; they were all covered, and there was no copay. Mae noticed, as they narrated the story of his recent health, that her mother was brighter, more buoyant. She was wearing short-shorts.
“The best thing about it,” her father said, “is that now your mother has whole swaths of extra time. It’s all so simple. I see the doctor and the Circle takes care of the rest. No middleman. No discussion.”
“Is that what I think it is?” Mae said. Over the dining room table, there was a silver chandelier, though upon closer inspection it seemed like one of Mercer’s. The silver arms were actually painted antlers. Mae had been only passingly enthusiastic about any of his work—when they were dating, she labored for kind things to say—but this one she genuinely liked.
“It is,” her mother said.
“Not bad,” Mae said.
“Not bad?” her father said. “It’s his best work, and you know it. This thing would go for five grand in one of those San Francisco boutiques. He gave it to us for free.”
Mae was impressed. “Why for free?”
“Why for free?” her mother asked. “Because he’s our friend. Because he’s a nice young man. And wait before you roll your eyes or come back with some witty comment.”
Mae did wait, and after she’d passed on a half-dozen unkind things she could say about Mercer and had chosen silence, she found herself feeling generous toward him. Because she no longer needed him, because she was now a crucial and measurable driver of world commerce, and because she had two men a
t the Circle to choose from—one of them a volcanic, calligraphic enigma who climbed walls to take her from behind—she could afford to be generous toward poor Mercer, his shaggy head and grotesque fatty back.
“It’s really nice,” Mae said.
“Glad you think so,” her mother said. “You can tell him yourself in a few minutes. He’s coming for dinner.”
“No,” Mae said. “Please no.”
“Mae,” her father said firmly, “he’s coming, okay?”
And she knew she couldn’t argue. Instead, she poured herself a glass of red wine and, while setting the table, she downed half of it. By the time Mercer knocked and let himself in, her face was half-numb and her thoughts were vague.
“Hey Mae,” he said, and gave her a tentative hug.
“Your chandelier thing is really great,” she said, and even while saying the words, she saw their effect on him, so she went further. “It’s really beautiful.”
“Thanks,” he said. He looked around to Mae’s parents, as if confirming they had heard the same thing. Mae poured herself more wine.
“It really is,” Mae continued. “I mean, I know you do good work.” And when she said this, Mae made sure not to look at him, knowing his eyes would doubt her. “But this is the best one you’ve done yet. I’m so happy that you put this much into … I’m just happy that my favorite piece of yours is in my parents’ dining room.”
Mae took out her camera and took a picture.
“What’re you doing?” Mercer said, though he seemed pleased that she’d deem it worthy of a photograph.